Vorbilder is the mentoring project of Future of Ghana Germany providing representative black role models for their younger brothers and sisters. This belongs to one of the organisation’s objectives, such as connecting the Diaspora.

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It all started 2015 when Lyn, the initiator of this project, sent all her friends and family a voice message regarding a rather discouraging incident at her placement in a Hamburger school. The message was about a group of stigmatized and discriminated black students, who were seemingly not entrusted with a bright future neither according to their teacher’s perception.Hearing that and her call for a movement and a change for these black students touched my heart and evolved the urge to become part of the Vorbilder movement. But by then, I wasn’t in the team yet. Several meetings and discussion rounds with Lyn’s family and friends followed. Unfortunately, I couldn’t join all of them, due to some commitments at Uni. Nevertheless, I made sure to definitely keep myself up to date by always asking Lyn how far and which minor tasks I could do.

At some point my study workload increased and made me slow down with a few things. Nevertheless, I was very happy when my Uni stress went down and I was asked to visit the third meeting of Vorbilder’s first school in Wilhelmsburg, Hamburg! I was supposed to get an insight into Vorbilder and present myself as a potential mentor for the kids. The workshop leader, Lyn, also asked me whether I could prepare a sweet titbit for their workshop where the different levels of communication were themetised.After this, I fell so much in love with the project, the kids, the team, just everything. I was highly impressed by the love and care that was shown towards the kids and also the very professional appearance of the Vorbilder team with their various feedback conversations among each other and the school social worker.

Today, I am a part of the team and assist in various organisational areas, such as preparing our fortnight mentoring workshops, organising events and supportinggeneral administrative and accounting tasks. I also love to cater for our Mentee’s and team member’s nutritive wellbeing by simply preparing small snacks for our mentoring workshops and team meetings.

I love this wonderful organisation and its respective members, who make it that great and hopefully even greater in the future.

About me:My name is Katia A. Danquah and I joined Future of Ghana Germany in March 2018. I am part of the FoGG-Vorbilder Team, the career orientation and responsible for our internal operations. Besides volunteering, I am reading vocational education at the University of Hamburg. In my opinion, FoGG provides outstanding black role models and symbolises Black Excellence, Growth & Unity, that is the reason why I joined.

Organizing WIDU workshop series for the African community

Imagine your money transfers to family in Ghana were doubled with free funding. Thus, when you send 250,00 EUR for instance, the recipient (family) will not only receive the initial amount but is additionally given a free grant of 500,00 EUR. However, the only requirement for receiving these funds is registering on an online platform and proof that the transferred money is used for business purposes. Now stop imagining because this is real!

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Within the African Diaspora in Germany, the FoG International Services team (FoG-IS) has promoted the above presented online platform, called WIDU. WIDU, an initiative launched by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), is an innovative way of creating employment and improving income in African countries. It is also a measure to boost African entrepreneurship, a goal which perfectly correlates with the goals of FoG-IS.

From November 2019 till March 2020, we organized a total of ten successful WIDU workshops all over Germany and counted an overall attendance of 150 interested participants. These participants were of different generations, ranging from 16 to 60+ years of age and from different origins such as Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria, Germany and Eritrea.

Here are some insights into our challenges in the planning process:

Challenge #1: Reaching our target group

A major challenge was reaching our target group. Most FoGG Business events target Afro-Germans who are up to 35 years of age. Our tight network within this group allowed us to have two well attended workshops. Invitations were sent via social media. The WIDU platform however is also for mums, dads, aunties and uncles and they often don’t follow us on social media.

We, the project management team (Daniel Tiemor, Louisa Schätz and myself), realized we had to be more creative about the used communication channels. Nowadays, influencer marketing is the new way of promoting and reaching target groups. Therefore, we brought on board Hamburg’s very own MC Charity Asante a known and trusted face to feature in a video ad. This was shared mainly on Facebook and Whatsapp and it unlocked the door to participants outside our network. In Düsseldorf and Berlin, we mainly profited from the tight structures of church communities. With the help of well-connected religious leaders, the workshops outside our home base turned out to be very well patronized.

Challenge #2: Conceptualizing the workshop

As money has always been a rather sensitive topic, the workshop required a convincing concept and a clear structure.

To outline our agenda whiles minimizing challenges we opted for the following:

We envisioned an easy and relaxed atmosphere during the workshop.“Good Food equates to Good Mood” was our secret formula. Ghana Aba Abrokyire and Fredano Catering provided us with delicious Ghanaian dishes, making everyone feel comfortable and ready to talk business.

Secondly, we expected a lot of new faces and our main goal was to build trust. Lucy Larbi and Martina Offeh – the trainers – achieved this by introducing FoG-IS and clearly explaining the key aspect of the work we are involved in. Under the third agenda point, a presentation of the concept and aim behind WIDU was given, including an explanation of the overall application and investment process. Further, initiators of the platform were introduced as well as a presentation of testimonials from successful WIDU applicants. As a result, we were able to explain the role of remittances in African countries. Our participants gained an insight on how development cooperation has worked over the years and were also convinced WIDU is an expression of the need to involve the Diaspora in this discourse.

We then progressed by going through the platform step by step. The goal was to eliminate the idea that WIDU requires a long and draining application process and also show that even people with no technical affinity can easily operate the user-friendly platform. Finally, we left enough time for questions. Participants were given a chance to query any aspects that may have not become clear during the presentation. To be able to answer questions accurately, we were also live connected with our contact person at GIZ.

Challenge #3: Staying connected

An important aspect we initially didn’t think of presented itself right after the workshops. We had to stay relevant even after the events by providing a means to stay connected with workshop participants.

Make your work visible! Once people see it, its success will attract new interested participants. Our workshop sessions were documented on social media channels via Instagram story posts, feed posts and photo collages (https://fog-germany.de/widu-projekt). Therefore, we were able to spark interest in new prospects. However, we soon realized that some of them were not resident in the cities that were visited. Our solution to that problem: Skype workshop sessions! This in particular taught us to be flexible even after all the planning.

Personal Tip: Don’t get lazy with admin work!

One last tip and without going into too much detail: Do not underestimate the administrative work! Negotiating and drawing up contracts, budget management, paying invoices, communication with project partners etc. – these tasks are time consuming!

Now can you imagine joining the WIDU movement?

My name is Sarah Owusu and I joined Future of Ghana Germany in April 2018. I am part of the FoG-IS Team and responsible for the organisation of Community Events. Besides volunteering, I am a junior lawyer and currently training at the district court in Itzehoe. In my opinion, FoGG symbolizes Black Excellence, Growth & Unity, that is the reason why I joined.

Future of Ghana Germany to organize the 10th Afro-German Business Afterwork in Hamburg

Have you realized that you barely notice Afro-Germans working in reputable economic, business or political sectors in Germany? Have you realized that only few technological innovations are driven by Afro-Germans in Germany? Do you only find very few Afro-German owned businesses in Germany?

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To reverse the status quo, Future of Ghana Germany (FoGG) gathers around 30 young Afro-German entrepreneurs, business thinkers and like-minded individuals every six weeks in Hamburg’s co-working space Mindspace to accelerate business initiation and business development.

I have observed that Germany’s society is increasingly marked by interculturality and an increasing prevalence of Afro-Germans. Despite the growing number of Afro-Germans, they are not visibly active or represented in key economic sectors in Germany – and this is what FoGG wants to change.

Through our FoGG Business Afterwork events we have not only inspired Afro-Germans to start their own businesses, but also attracted Afro-Germans, who already established a business but have not yet been visible on the radar.

I can confirm that our young entrepreneurs are endowed with many innovative business ideas, however only few are taking the next step towards execution. Among other challenges that impede establishing a business, is the lack of technical business know-how, no access to a valuable network and funding for their businesses.

During the course of our last ten FoGG Business Afterwork events, the entrepreneurs have learned where to apply for general business funding, the pros and cons of a family business, how to structure their business by using e.g. the Business Model Canvas and have received various key notes and best practices from established entrepreneurs.

Hence, FoGG has put a strong emphasis on two points: Providing technical know-how and access to a great business network. Pertaining to financial support, FoGG is currently working on a concept to accumulate financial capital and make it available for Afro-German entrepreneurs. We want to accelerate innovative business ideas and support Afro-German entrepreneurs in the transition from ideation to execution. Key players to establish this fund will be investors who have a strong interest in supporting Afro-German entrepreneurs.

One concept point is to organize a pitch event “Afro-Business-Pitch” in 2021, in which the most innovative idea will receive a business mentor and funding to scale their business idea.

If you want to receive more information on the FoGG Business Afterwork and the upcoming “Afro-Business-Pitch” please get in contact with us via email: germany@futureofghana.com

If you are interested to be part of the upcoming pitch event as an entrepreneur, investor, sponsor, volunteer or guest, please get in contact with us via email: business-fogg@futureofghana.com

Also check us out on Instagram: @foggermany and Facebook: Future of Ghana Germany Our website www.fog-germany.dewill launch on December 24, 2019

Next Business Afterwork: 14.11.19, 7pm, Mindspace Hamburg

About Me:

My name is Lucy Larbi, Founder and Regional Manager of Future of Ghana Germany since January 2016. Besides volunteering for FoGG, I work for a business consulting firm and consult German medium-sized and large-scale firms in their digital transformation as an agile coach. My driving passion is to diversify Germany’s economic, business and political sphere with the presence of an Afro-German workforce and business leaders.

]]>https://fog-germany.de/future-of-ghana-germany-to-organize-the-10th-afro-german-business-afterwork-in-hamburg/feed5You Don’t Need Your Own Children To Become A Role Model.https://fog-germany.de/you-dont-need-your-own-children-to-become-a-role-model
https://fog-germany.de/you-dont-need-your-own-children-to-become-a-role-model#respondWed, 18 Dec 2019 17:39:12 +0000http://fog-germany.de/?p=7645

You Don’t Need Your Own Children To Become A Role Model.

Not too long ago, five likeminded people and I co-founded the non-profit organization Future of Ghana Germany e.V. – FoGG. We launched the initiative “Vorbilder” (role models) in which young professionals are given the opportunity to become mentors to children who live in Germany and have an African background. We wanted to actively take on responsibility for the generations to come and contribute to the empowerment of children and young adults that have a similar background to us. The goal of this initiative is to develop and maintain a long-lasting bond between mentor and mentee. We wanted to create an environment in which they can jointly work on solutions in the event of challenges in the lives of the mentees. This includes areas such as school, career and general life challenges.

FoGG-Newsletter

The starting point of “Vorbilder” was the observation that children in Germany with an African background are often behind at school and cannot level up to the performance of their classmates. Not because they lack intelligence or talent but rather because they are born into more challenging socioeconomic environments. Research has shown that this often lead to children facing unconscious biases from their teachers, labeling them as “slow learners”. Carrying this discouraging label resonates in passivity and retreat of the children. They develop a fear of contact with studying and entrepreneurship that limit realizing their full potential during early adulthood. Another related challenge is the lack of parental support, as many African parents are unable to adequately support their children like they wish to do. Language barriers, working situations or simply a lack of knowledge about the German educational and vocational system can be root-causes.

As a child born to Ghanaian immigrants, I had my fair share of those experiences myself and know all too well how this could have effected my development, if had not pulled myself together. Working for a top level professional service firm like Ernst & Young as a African-German in Germany, I am still considered quite a unicorn in and outside of my community. I aspire to make this the norm rather than the exception. I did not have a person in my age I could openly talk to, navigating me through what it means to fill multiple roles as a first-generation immigrant in Germany. I was determined and had a strong focus, still I am sure I probably would have gone through all this much faster and easier if I had a supporter in my corner who already traveled the same or similar journey.

The misconception of mentoring

Now whenever I talk about this, people seem to be baffled about the idea that a twenty-something-year-old, who has no children of his own decided to initiate an organization of more twenty-something year adults to mentor children.

You do not need your own children to become a role model. Matter of fact you do not need to have a specific age, income or social status. All you need are two things, first valuable information that helped you accomplish something that was hard to reach and second the desire to transfer this knowledge to enable others to benefit from it. That’s it! Being a mentor is a very individual “act of service” that you can tailor in a way most beneficial for you and your mentee – no limits and no boundaries. You can mentor a child in education or mentor 20 children in healthy eating. Whatever is your area of expertise, whatever resonates with your purpose – use it to empower others.

At FoGG we do group mentoring. At our group mentoring, mentees and mentors get to know each other and playfully work together on challenging and relevant topics. We focus on topics such as empowerment, participation, equal opportunities, inclusion, democracy, diversity, and identity. The aim is to enable the children to exploit their full potential. It is important for us to break down the topics in a target-oriented way to the real-life situations of the children. The topics are carefully prepared according to topicality and relevance for the mentees and are treated, for example, by the specific conception of role-plays, theatrical performances and talent shows. The children are actively involved and motivated to reflect on these topics. Additionally, they are learning how to organize their daily routines, take responsibility for themselves and develop social skills. This will greatly strengthen their independence and general performance. For the sessions, young professionals with an African background are invited to talk about their individual professions, educational background, and personal life experiences, thus motivating the mentees.

“Vorbilder” is rooted in two main challenges lack of support and lack of motivation of children with an African background and sometimes difficult socioeconomic circumstances. We match the children with their mentors and connect them to a platform that helps them to discover what makes them remarkable and unique, unlock their hidden potentials and reveal strengths that are yet invisible to them.

I am certain that you have children and young adults in your immediate sphere of influence that could benefit from what you know – they might look up to you. They might make different decisions in life or be motivated to walk the extra mile simply because you took some time to listen and to transparently share some of your highs and lows. A 15min conversation can transform the life of a child or a young adult.